to the local annals, and prepared to be questioned with respect to his
own prospects and affairs.

'You'll be growing pretty well to do, Paul?' said Armstrong.

'Well, yes,' said Paul, feeling at a pocket-book which lay at the right
side of his tweed coat. 'I'm getting pretty well-to-do.'

'Yell be getting married one of these fine days?' his father asked,
twinkling dryly at him.

'Well, the fact is, sir,' Paul answered in some embarrassment, 'I am
married.'

'Holy Paul!' said Armstrong, and dropped his pipe upon the patchwork
rug. Paul stooped for it to cover his own confusion.

'Yes,' he said hurriedly, 'I am married. And I felt such a beast for not
having written to tell you all about it that I made up my mind to be
my own messenger. The truth is it was all rather hurried, and
unexpected--in a way. There had been an attachment for some time, but
there was no immediate thought of marriage, and Annette--that is my
wife's name--Annette fell ill, and was not expected to recover, and it
was really, to both our minds, a sort of death-bed ceremony, and now she
is quite recovered.'

There was such a sense of awkwardness upon him that he boggled the
simple story altogether. There was no amazement in his mind at all when
his father spoke next. He could have foretold his words.

'Man, 'said Armstrong, 'had ye led the gyirl astray?'

He had never meant to lie about the matter, but at this point-blank
thrust he lied.

'My dear old dad!' he said, 'what _are_ you thinking of?'

'I beg your pardon, Paul,' said Armstrong--'I beg your pardon.'

They seemed at once to have a gulf between them, though the simple,
honest elder, who had probably never lied in the whole course of his
life, did not perceive it. Before Paul it gaped unbridgable.

'She's a dear, good little creature,' Paul boggled along, with a
disastrous facility of words which had no guidance. 'She's French by
descent, but she speaks very good English--very fair English. I taught
her. I'll bring her down to see you. We're living in Belgium at present,
at a little place called Montcourtois, a charming little place. She
likes the quiet of it, and it's very favourable for work. If one lives
in town there are so many calls upon one's time. You can't get really
settled down to the development of an idea, you know.'

'Ay,' said Armstrong, 'I can imagine that. But, Paul, lad, I could have
wished ye'd written.'

'Don't make it harder than it is, sir,' Paul appeal